Amen. Title of the sermon this morning is plan B for your life. Plan B for your life.
In this story that we just read here in Deuteronomy chapter one, we read about the children of Israel
and at this point 99 percent of the children of Israel have ruined their life. They've destroyed
their life. What do I mean by that? Well flip over to Numbers chapter 14. But they've destroyed
their life in a way where they could never fix it. You see, God's plan for them originally was
that he would take them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and he would bring
them into a land flowing with milk and honey. The promised land, Canaan, that was the destination.
It wasn't just to get out of Egypt, but it was also to go to this wonderful place that they're
going to inherit the land of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the land of promise, and all these
different things. Well, they ended up sinning against the Lord in the wilderness and making
him so mad that he told them, none of you are going into the promised land. Speaking of those
from 20 years old and upward. So those who are under 20 years old, they're spared this judgment.
But those that are 20 years old and upward, he says to the children of Israel,
you will wander in the wilderness for the next 40 years and every one of you are going to die
during that time in the next 40 years. Your carcasses will fall in this wilderness and it's
your children that are younger, they're going to be the ones who inherit the promised land.
That's the new plan. God's original plan is just for them to leave Egypt, go to the promised land.
But then he changes that and says, because of what you've done, this is the consequence.
So these people have ruined their lives in the sense that they're never going to get to
the original intended goal of their lives. They're never going to achieve what God originally
had planned for them. They will not enjoy the blessings that God wanted to bless them with.
And there's no way to fix it. The next day they're crying and sad and they want to fix it.
They can't fix it. It's too late. Let's look at Numbers chapter 14, verse 28. The Bible says,
Say unto them, as truly as I live, saith the Lord, as you've spoken in my ears, so will I do
to you. Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that were numbered of you,
according to your whole number from 20 years old and upward, which have murmured against me,
saying they complained to him. Doubtless ye shall not come into the land. That's pretty clear.
There's no doubt. There's no way to fix it. You're doomed. Doubtless ye shall not come
into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunne
and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which he said should be a prey,
them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you've despised. But as for you,
your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander
in the wilderness 40 years, and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in
the wilderness. After the number of the days in which you searched the land, even 40 days,
each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities even 40 years, and ye shall know my breach
of promise. Now, this is a pretty negative chapter. It's pretty depressing when you read
about how these people are going to die, and God uses all this strong language about how
your carcasses are going to rot in the wilderness, you're going to be wiped out,
you're going to be destroyed. There's so much we can learn from this.
One thing I want to point out is that for every day of disobedience, he says you'll have a year
of punishment. And by the way, that's the way life works, kids. You go out and you spend one day in
fornication. You could suffer from that for years. You spend one day committing adultery.
You spend one day getting drunk, one day getting high, one day out living a life of wickedness and
sin. You know, the things that you do in one day can ruin your whole life. You say, well,
that's not fair. If I sin for one day, I should only get one day of punishment. Well, God says,
my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. And so God says, you for 40 days
sent these spies, not in faith, not to go spy out the land to figure out the best way to take over,
but to decide whether or not you're going to obey me, which was not what he told them to do.
And therefore, he says, one year for each day, I'm going to punish you with 40 years of wandering
in the wilderness. So that shows you that mistakes that you make in your life,
sins that you commit in your life can come back and bite you even for the next 20 years,
even for 30 or 40 years, and even can permanently destroy your life. So you need to take it very
seriously when God tells us to keep his commandments, to abstain from fornication,
not to be drunk with wine, not to commit adultery, not to kill, not to steal, because if we push God
too far, serious consequence can happen in our lives. You say, well, I'm saved, I'm going to
heaven. Of course, if you're saved, you're going to heaven. There's nothing you could ever do to
lose your salvation. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And Jesus Christ will never leave
us or forsake us. But you can still mess up your life on this earth. It's still possible to ruin
your life in such a way where you can never fix it. Now, if we were to just close our Bibles and
go home right now, that'd be a pretty, it would still be a good sermon because of the fact that
it'd still be better than what you're hearing in most churches where they'll never even warn you
about the permanent nature of the consequences of sin. They'll never even warn you. It's just
all about the second chance. Well, sometimes you can mess up your life to a point where
you're doomed. But if we were to just close our Bibles and go home there, that would be a bit
depressing for a lot of people. Now, for the young people who haven't messed up their life yet,
it would be an effective sermon for them. It would be a great sermon for them to put the
fear of God into them. But it would leave other people maybe feeling a little depressed because
of the fact that they would say, well, pastor, I'm like one of those people in that story.
I already messed up my life. I'm, you know, what do I do for the next 40 years of my life? Because
I've already messed up. And that's what I want to focus on this morning is not so much to warn the
young people, which I just did for a few moments, but mainly I want to preach this morning to the
people who have messed up your life. You find yourself in a situation like the children of
Israel in whatever area of your life. And so the title of the sermon is plan B for your life.
So the bad news is you can mess up your life to where it can never be fixed and you may never
make it to the promised land. You may not achieve the full blessings and the full status and the
full will of God that he had originally planned for your life. But the good news is that no matter
who you are, if you're here today and you are saved, then God is not done with you. And God has
a plan B for your life. It's not over for you. Now you say, well, it was over for these people. No,
it wasn't over for them because God continues to work with them and he continues to lead them
and guide them and minister to them over the next 40 years. I mean, the story's not over.
They just have a new mission instead of the original plan for their lives, which was to go
to the promised land and enjoy all those blessings. Now the benefit that they're going to look toward
is just letting their kids get there. So instead of being the people that conquer Canaan,
they're going to be now the parents of the children that conquer Canaan. Now, admittedly,
that's not as good. I mean, Moses didn't like the fact that he had to just go up into a mountain and
see Canaan from afar off. He wanted to go in there. He wasn't allowed to go either. All these
people missed out on that, but they still have purpose and meaning in their lives because God
wants them to continue to worship him, to continue to serve him in the wilderness,
and to train their children to do the job that they failed to do. Because frankly,
if they don't train their children to do that, that's not going to happen either. Then God's
going to have to pull out plan C, right? And obviously, these people would rather see their
kids at least get to inherit the land than nobody to get to inherit the land. So if you're a parent
and you've messed up your life, you could raise your children and teach your children not to make
the same mistake and to grow up and achieve victory and get into the promised land and so
forth. Now, there are two mistakes that you can make when you mess up your life irreparably.
And like I said, there are many ways to do that. But once you've messed up your life,
there are two mistakes you can make according to this passage.
One mistake you could make is to just throw in the towel and quit and say, well, God can't use
me anymore. God has no use for my life. I don't know where else to go. I'm just going to quit
church, quit on God. I'm just going to go live a failure of a life because I've already blown it.
It's too late for me. Or another way of throwing in the towel is that people will sometimes commit
suicide. So there could be a throwing in the towel that says, I'm going to get out of church.
God can't use me. I'm a loser. I failed. Why even try and just turn into a worldly life
because we feel that we failed God. We failed the church. We failed Christianity.
That's one mistake. And another subset of that mistake would be suicide itself.
Now, this happens frequently. I've known young men whose wife left them.
They failed marriage. Wife left them and they ended up committing suicide.
I knew a young man like that a few years ago. He ended up committing suicide. I talked to somebody
recently, very recently, who was going through the same thing. His wife's leaving him. And these are
Christian young men. These are men who love the Lord. His wife's leaving him and he was
contemplating suicide because he was so distraught. He's so depressed. There are men in the Bible
who got so depressed, even men who were saved, who got so depressed that they actually wished
to die. Remember, Elijah said that he wanted to die. Jonah said that he wished he would die.
And different people in the Bible, they got depressed and they're ready to give up. They're
ready to quit, whether that's a physical quitting in the most extreme sense of committing suicide
or whether that's a quitting of just quitting church, quitting the things of God.
That's a big mistake to not understand that if you are breathing air and you are a saved child
of God, God is not through with you. He still has a plan for your life. You should never give up
hope ever. It's the saddest thing to see someone take their life and commit suicide. And you say,
well, a Christian would never do that. That's false because there were people in the Bible
who did that that were saved. You say, well, if they commit suicide, they'll lose their salvation.
Nowhere does the Bible teach that. The Bible teaches that we have eternal life. We have
everlasting life and that we're sealed by the Holy Ghost under the day of redemption. Nowhere
does it say unless you commit suicide. Now, look, committing suicide is a horrible thing to do.
It's a horribly selfish act. It's super hurtful to the people around you. And it's harmful
to your any of your family, any of your friends. And it's just a complete waste of the life that
God has given you. It's a throwing in of the towel. Don't quit. Don't give up. God has a plan B
for your life, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter how bad you've screwed
it up. If you are saved, I'm going to get into this more from the Bible, but God has a plan B
for your life. So mistake number one would be to just throw in the towel, go back to Egypt,
quit on God, even to go to the extreme of committing suicide. Okay. The second mistake
that people make though is where they think plan A is still available to me.
They think, well, a plan A is still there. It's always no, no wrong. Sometimes you mess up your
life to where plan A is no longer available to you. Now that's what the children of Israel did
in this story. They messed up and they thought that plan A was still available. Go back to
Deuteronomy chapter one. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number one. You see, when you mess up,
when you ruin your life, I don't care how big the mistake is. I don't know. I don't care how
serious the consequences are. If you're still alive, if you're still breathing air and you're
a child of God, never give up hope, never quit, never throw in the towel because God has a plan B
for your life and that plan B could still be great. I'm not saying it's just some lame,
terrible plan B. I mean, it could still be a glorious plan B. Now it's not going to be as
good as plan A, but plan B can still be great. And you know what? I have way more respect for
somebody who's living plan D or plan E than the guy who quits and throws in the towel.
The righteous man falleth seven times and riseth up again. It doesn't matter if he's on plan G or
H at that point. He keeps on going. And so you never quit. You never stop. God said that his
mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. Every day we can start over and
we can do right from here on out. But does that mean that plan A is still available?
Not necessarily. Sometimes plan A is gone. Let me show you what I mean. Look at Deuteronomy chapter
1 verse 40. God tells them, as for you, this is after that big depressing speech about how they're
all going to die, their carcasses are going to rot and everything. But as for you, God says to them,
turn you and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. So he's like, all right
people, go into the wilderness. Go to your room. You've sinned against me. Go to the wilderness.
But then he answered and said unto me, we've sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight.
Is that what he told him to do? Did he say, all right, people go up and fight? He said, no. That
was plan A. Plan A was to go up and fight. But he said, no, you've sinned. Now you're going to
the wilderness for 40 years. Okay, God, we're sorry. We changed our mind. Let's go to the
Promised Land now. And he says unto them, they said, we'll go up and fight according to all
that the Lord our God commanded us. And when you'd girded on every man his weapons of war,
you were ready to go up into the hill. And the Lord said unto me, say unto them, verse 42,
go not up, neither fight, for I am not among you lest you be smitten before your enemies.
So I spake unto you and you would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord
and went presumptuously up into the hill. And what happens, of course, they get defeated,
they lose, people die, and they still end up having to do what? Plan B. You know, they go
into the wilderness and they experience plan B for their lives. Flip over to Judges chapter 16.
God always has a plan B for our lives. Now the children of Israel, they still had some good times
after this. They still got to eat the manna, right? They still got to see God perform all
kinds of miracles in the wilderness and bring water out of the rock. They still got to even
fight other battles. Now, did they get to fight the battle against the Canaanites that they wanted
to fight? No. But God had other battles for them to fight. And they were able to be victorious
against Og and Sihon, the kings of Bashan. They were able to defeat some armies. They were able
to win some victories. They were able to get some territory. They were able to eat the manna
and see the miracles and hear God's word preached and do great things and raise godly children
who had the faith to go into Canaan. So their life was definitely not a waste and their life
still had some high points. But plan A was no longer available, but God had a plan B for their
life. Now Samson is a perfect example of this, of a guy who just messed up his life so bad that
it could never be fixed, okay? Because Samson's weakness was fornication. So he commits fornication.
He even went to a prostitute and he keeps falling into this wicked sin. And because of his sin,
because of the lust that he couldn't get over in his heart, what does he end up doing? He ends up
being captured by the Philistines and having his eyes burned out, poked out. Now think about this.
You can't fix that. I mean when somebody stabs out your two eyes and you're blind now,
your days as a warrior are over. I mean this guy's whole life is about what? Being a warrior,
being a judge, being a deliverer. He's going out and fighting the Philistines and if you remember,
God gave him this great gift of superhuman strength where the Spirit of the Lord would
come upon him and he would be able to just defeat these hordes of Philistines and he could just
fight for hours and he wouldn't even get tired. He just had so much strength. Now we picture
Samson sometimes as just being this huge body builder of a guy, right? But I don't even think
he was because I think that if they would have looked at him and seen this huge Arnold
Schwarzenegger looking guy that they probably wouldn't have been saying, you know, what's the
secret wearing his great strength lieth? They would have just looked at him and said the guy's huge.
The guy's got big muscles. The guy's, you know, we don't know what he's on or whatever. If he's
doping or if he's just, you know, got the right genetics or what his workout program is, we want
to get a copy of it. But the point is that I think that the reason they were so perplexed like we
got to figure out what's the secret behind his strength, I think he just looked like an ordinary
guy. I think he looked like, you know, I'm not saying he was some skinny dweeb, but I'm saying
I think he just looked like an ordinary warrior, but yet he had superhuman strength that was
through the power of God. So he has all these glory days of going out and fighting and
defeating the Philistines and God's purpose for his life was to deliver the children of Israel
out of the land of the, out of the hand of the Philistines. How do we know that? Because God
did it over and over again in Judges, right? The pattern goes over and over again. What happens?
They go into bondage because of sin. God sends a great deliverer, whether that's Othniel the son of
Kenaz, whether that's Ehud, whether that's Gideon, and then that ruler, that deliverer, that warrior,
he goes in and he leads the people to victory, delivers them from their oppressors, and then it'll
tell us, okay, then the land had peace for X amount of years. So if you read between the lines,
what's going on in the Book of Judges is these judges, they fight a great battle, they win a great
victory, and then you know what they get to do? They get to enjoy the victory because then they
get to lead the nation through a peaceful time. You know, the land had rest for 20 years, or he
judged the people for 30 years, he judged the people for 20 years. So obviously God's perfect
plan for his life based on what he'd been doing in the Book of Judges would be that Samson would
have risen up, fought against the Philistines, delivered the people, and then he could have,
what, enjoyed peace, enjoyed being the judge, being the leader, being the ruler of the land,
and everything that goes with rest and peace. But because of the fact that he couldn't control his
lust, he goes out, commits fornication, and ruins his life to the point where his eyes are poked
out, and he's imprisoned by the Philistines, he's chained to a millstone to work as an animal would
work, you know, grinding in the mill. Not only is he working as an animal would work, not only have
his eyes been put out to where he's permanently blinded, he's not going to be able to fight any
more battles, he's actually an object of scorn and mockery and derision that the Philistines just
sort of pull out to make fun of. So I mean it's over for this guy, right? But it's not over for
him because what does the Bible say? Look at Judges chapter 16 verse 20, and she said the
Philistines be upon thee Samson, and he woke out of his sleep and said, and here's where he thinks
that plan A is still available, I'll go out as at other times before and shake myself, and wist not
that the Lord was departed from him. But the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and
brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass and he did grind in the prison house,
how be it the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. So you can see in verse 22
God is already showing a plan B there, where the hair of his head begins to grow again, which was
symbolic of his strength, when he got his hair cut he lost his strength, his hair begins to grow
again. So plan B for Samson is that Samson ends up going to this great feast of the Philistines
where they're making fun of him, and he ends up having a young man guide him to the two pillars
where on the whole house rests, and he's blinded, nobody sees him as a threat, he's chained up,
but they bring him, this little boy brings him to the two pillars where on the house rests,
and he says the famous words, let me die with the Philistines, and he ends up being endued by God
one last time with strength, and pushing the two pillars apart, and bringing down the whole
building upon the Philistines. All the Lords of the Philistines are there, their whole government's
there, their great warriors are all there, all the important people that had defeated Israel are
all in one place, and he ends up just bringing down the whole house on them, and it says that
he killed more people in his death than he did in his whole life. Now that's not a very glorious
way to end your life though when you're doing it as a suicide bomber, you know it's not a very
glorious, it's not a very glorious way to end your life when you're dying with the Philistines.
It's not a very glorious way to end your life when you're taking your own life, and you don't
get to enjoy any of the spoils of war, any of the aftermath of the victory, but in the end his
original purpose was to deliver Israel from the Philistines, and what did he do? He delivered
Israel from the Philistines. I think that was very important to him because that was his lifelong
goal to do that. So did he get to have his prestige back? No. Did he get to have the glory?
No. Did he get to enjoy peace and the spoils of war? No. Did he get his eyesight back? No. But what
did he get to do? He got to accomplish something that was his lifelong ambition. So God still had
a plan B for his life, not as good as plan A, but a plan B nonetheless. Go if you would to
2 Corinthians 2, and then actually let's go to 2 Corinthians 2, but first let's go to 1 Corinthians
7. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 7 instead. Now another great example of a plan B is the woman
at the well. I mean this woman was not on plan A for her life. She wasn't even on husband day
because the Bible said that the woman at the well had had five husbands,
and at that time she's living with somebody that she's not even married to. He said yeah you're
right you have no husband. You've had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy
husband, and that sets thou truly I have no husband. Isn't it funny how people can tell the
truth but still leave out? You know I have no husband. That's a true story. What she failed to
mention is that she's been married and divorced five times, and then she says well I perceive thou
to profit. Now you say that's unrealistic. Well there are a lot of people in 2017 that have been
divorced over five times. You know Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind, but there's a lot more
that have been married over and over again. Now look if there's anybody who you'd look at and say
this person has messed up their life. God can't use this person at all. Put a fork in them. They're
done. You'd say that woman at the well has been married five times, and is now living in sin.
That's pretty bad, but yet Christ makes a point to go talk to her to get her saved, and not only
does she get saved, she ends up being used to get other people saved, right? So she ends up going
into the town. She leaves her water pot, goes in town, tells everybody about Jesus, brings a whole
bunch of people to Jesus. A whole bunch of people end up getting saved, so that goes to show that
even if you're a woman who's been married and divorced five times, you know what? You could
still win people to Christ. Now plan A for your life was that you obviously be married and raise
your children to be godly children, but you know what? That didn't work out because you know of sin
and so forth, so now God has another plan for your life, but should that woman at the well just throw
in the towel? Should she just give up? Should she just quit on God or commit suicide? No, because
there's a plan B for her life, and she ends up being one of the most well-known characters in
the Bible. If we went to pretty much anybody who'd spent a few years in church and said,
hey, do you know the story of the woman at the well? They're all going to say what?
They're going to say yes. It's one of the most famous stories. The Book of John is the most
popular book in the whole Bible. It's been translated into virtually every language. Any
language where they're just going to translate one book, what do they translate? John or John
in Romans, and she's in what? Chapter four, so I mean that's a story that's heard around the world.
Everybody's heard that story. God used her greatly in her own generation to bring a bunch of people
to Jesus Christ, and then not only that, we're still talking about her, so her legacy goes on,
so was she a complete failure? No, because she got on plan B. She didn't just quit, didn't just give
up, but she went on to plan B. So maybe you've been divorced, or divorced and remarried, or maybe
you've even done that several times, or maybe you've got a criminal record with a bunch of
felonies on it, and maybe you've committed murder, or you've committed robberies, or you've been
addicted to drugs, you've been burned out on drugs, or whatever. You know what? There's still a plan B
for your life. You know I was just talking about before the service, I had a friend who was my
sole winning partner for years, and he had been addicted to heroin for over a decade at one point
in his life. Now was his brain what it would have been if he hadn't been on heroin for over a decade?
No. Did he reach the potential that he would have reached? No, but he was still in his old age
serving God, winning people to Christ, raising a family, doing great things for the Lord, preaching
sermons. Why? Because he got on plan B. He didn't just quit. He didn't just give up, but he went
forward with his life. So no matter what you've done, you should do that. But realize that plan A
is not necessarily there for you. Now here's one issue where that comes up a lot is with pastors.
Why? Because there are qualifications for being a pastor or a deacon. And one of those qualifications
is that you're the husband of one wife. Right? The husband of one wife. And another one of these
qualifications is that you're blameless. That doesn't mean that you're perfect, but it does mean
that you haven't done some super serious thing where everybody would just point to that and say,
well, who are you to be the pastor? You've done X, Y, and Z. Okay? So there are qualifications
that you could permanently disqualify yourself from being a pastor by messing up that
qualification of husband of one wife. But see, you've got a lot of guys out there today
who they are divorced and they're on their second wife, but they still want to be a pastor.
That's just like the children of Israel when they want to go up and fight when God said, no,
you're on plan B now. You need to go to the wilderness. Now, I want to get into an important
point in the sermon here while I touch on this subject. Here's an important point in the sermon
is that people who end up making one of these two mistakes where they either throw in the towel,
throw in the towel, right? And either go to Egypt or commit suicide, or they make the other mistake
of saying, well, I still want plan B. I still want plan A. I still want plan A for my life.
Here's why they make that mistake. Either one. And listen very carefully. It's an important point
because they make the mistake of thinking that they only have one purpose in life. Now,
when people get their life all wrapped up just about one thing and just one purpose and one goal
and they get too fixated on that one thing, then when that thing is taken away from them, they feel
like what? I have no hope. And then they end their life. Or they say, well, I'm going to have that one
thing no matter what, even if God said no. See, my life is not just all about being a pastor
because if it were, then what if that were ever taken away from me or if I were to stop being
a pastor? Am I just going to quit serving God? Am I just going to end my life? Am I just going to
go back to the world? Or am I just going to say, well, I want to be a pastor no matter what has
happened, even if it's totally inappropriate. See what I'm saying? So people who get fixated on just
one thing, they can't get over this when it's taken away from them. We need to have more than
one thing in our life that's motivating us and more than one thing that we spend our life doing.
That's why it's always insane to me when I listen to these people that say, well, yeah, I know that
guy's been divorced and remarried, but you're saying he can't pastor. Well, what's he supposed
to do? Well, what's everybody supposed to do that's not a pastor? The vast majority of people
are never going to be a pastor. Does that mean that they can't serve God? Of course not. So
that just goes to show the mentality. In fact, there was even a guy, I think, at one point
that he had some article about it or it was called What Shall This Man Do? And it was like,
what is he supposed to do now? Well, there's this, so you're just saying these people just
can't serve God because they've been divorced? No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying
that they can't be a pastor or a deacon and that there are plenty of other ways to serve God
besides being a pastor or a deacon. Don't fixate on that. Now, there could be other ways that your
life is messed up where you get fixated on one thing and then you just want to throw in the
towel. How about this? What if you're one of these people where your whole life is just your kids?
It's just all about your kids. Now, especially women can get this way where just the only thing
that matters to them is their kids. It's all about their kids. That's all they live for is their
kids. And you say, well, that sounds good to me. Well, you're wrong if that sounds good to you.
That's not the way we're supposed to live our lives. Our life is not just all about our kids.
Now, obviously, for a mother, that's a pretty important part of her life, but it's not her
whole life because what happens then when her kids get out of the house? Now she doesn't know
what to do. Or what happens maybe if she has a child or children? What if they die and then all
of a sudden, what, her life is meaningless now? Or what about this? What if she raises her kids
and they go to the devil and they turn out wrong? Well, what, is life just over now?
Is it just the end? Well, if that's all you have in your life, then, yeah, that would be the end
for you, right? And then you're going to do what? You're either going to go and throw in the towel,
which is terrible. Or you're going to say, well, I must have plan A for my life, so I'm just going to
raise other people's kids or involve, interfere in other people's or whatever, you know?
So the point is, we have more than one thing going for us in our life. And, you know, a lot of,
it's not just Christians who make this mistake, worldly people make this mistake too.
I read about a guy who was a really good runner and he was like a professional runner, he's doing
all these running events. He got injured to the point where he can't run anymore and he ended up
killing himself. Because he can't run anymore, kills himself. My great-grandfather killed himself.
And the story goes that, and, you know, there's different versions of the story, it's hard to tell,
you know, 70 years later or however long ago it was. But my great-grandfather was really into his
work, he was obsessed with work, and his whole identity was in being a hard worker. That's who
he was, that's who his dad was, they're just these hard-working people. And he ended up getting some
kind of high blood pressure or some issue later in life, he was unhealthy, and the doctor told him,
hey, you got to scale back from work because you're, you know, your body can't handle it,
you're ill. So he didn't listen to that and he continues to work. Well, he's a potato farmer in
Idaho, he went to lift up a bag of potatoes and he couldn't lift the bag of potatoes and he said,
he threw it down and said, I'm not worth anything, and he shot himself. Because he couldn't lift a
bag of potatoes. You know, there's a guy who's only got one thing going in his life, work. Whether
it's running or work, I mean, those are obviously foolish and vain things. You can't run anymore,
really, so life's over. It's like, get a bike or something or go swimming or, you know, how about
this, get saved and have real meaning in your life. I can't even count how many books I've read by
athletes or runners who act like, oh, my life had no purpose and then I discovered running. It's like,
your life still has no purpose, because running's not a purpose for your life, okay?
I mean, it's just bizarre, isn't it? But people, they fixate on that one thing, whether it's being
a pastor, whether it's being a parent, or how about this, whether it's being a husband or wife.
Now, look, I'm all for you loving your husband with all your heart and loving your wife and
making that a big priority for you in your life. But you know what? If that's all you live for,
what happens when that person dies? Or what happens when, God forbid, that marriage comes
to an end? You know, that's where you have these guys killing themselves when their wife leaves
them, because they're just too wrapped up in that one thing. They need to realize that our life has
multiple facets. We have multiple things going on in our life. We have multiple purposes that we
live for, and if one of those things is taken away from us, we say, the Lord giveth, the Lord
taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord, and we get up the next morning, and we get on Plan B
for our lives, and we start doing something else. We do something else. Now, look, we all want Plan
A, don't we? But guess what? Plan A doesn't always work out. Sometimes Plan A doesn't work out just
because it wasn't God's will. Other times, more often, Plan A falls through because of the fact
that we sinned, that we screwed it up. Let's just be honest, right? Most of the time we screwed up.
Our marriage ends, it's because we screwed up. Our kids turn out bad because we screwed up. You know,
we lose our job because we screwed up. We can't be a pastor anymore because we screwed up. Just quit
making excuses about it, and just admit that you've screwed up in life, right? Everybody
makes mistakes. Everybody ruins different aspects of their life through whatever avenue, and so we
just need to admit it. Hey, I messed up. That part of my life isn't what it should be, but we need to
then be able to say, you know what? But I've got other things going for me in my life. God's got
another plan for me. I could still do this. I could still serve God in this way. I could still live
for this. And you know, the world today has brainwashed us through the music and the TV and
the movies into thinking that our romantic relationship is like all that life's about,
right? You know, we got all the songs. From this moment, I am blessed. I live only
for your happiness. And look, I heard that song sung at a Christian wedding,
and I was offended by it because I thought to myself, so you live only for her happiness?
What about Jesus? What about God? What about the Bible? What about, you know, what, what do you
just, so now that I'm married, it's just, I only live for your happiness. That's scary.
That's like that over attached girlfriend meme. I mean, I hope that my wife doesn't live only
for my happiness. And you know what? She doesn't want me to live only for her happiness either.
You say, well, yeah, she does. No, she doesn't. She doesn't. Why? Because then when she's not
happy, then I'm, what do I do? When I'm not happy, you know, panic ensues. It's too much
pressure. I mean, it's too much pressure if I just have to be everything to my wife. I'm her
everything. You're my everything. It's too, she doesn't want that pressure. I don't want that
pressure. You know what? My wife and I have a great relationship, but we're not everything
to each other because you know what? If I die, her life will go on and she will continue to
serve God. She will continue to raise children. She will continue to love the Lord and she will
have something else to live for. And you know what? If she dies, same thing. It's going to be
sad. There's going to be great mourning. There's going to be great grieving, but it's not going to
be like, that's it. My only reason for living is now gone. But you know what? There are people who
are like that. Their spouse leaves them, they commit suicide. Their spouse dies, they commit
suicide. I mean, it's out there, friend. Why? Because what Hollywood and the music tells you
is a fraud. That's not where you find meaning in your life is through your relationship with
your spouse. That's where you find some of the meaning in your life, but that's not where you
find 100% of the meaning in your life. Okay. And if you do, you got problems because they're never
going to live up to that in your mind. And so, you know, I live only because of your happiness.
You're the reason I believe in love. The song said, you already keep singing it. I hate that song.
I hate that singer. I'm not even going to name the singer, but I don't like that song because
it's like, you're the reason I believe in love. My dreams came true because of you.
I live only for your happiness. I felt that it was very blasphemous to have this at a Christian
wedding where we should be glorifying God. You know, you want to know the reason I believe in love?
Because of Christ. God is love and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
You know, I, I, I don't believe in love because I met my wife.
But, but you know, we're constantly hearing this stuff and the movies, that's how they all end.
They don't show you, you know, they don't show you part, part two of these movies would be when
the relationship's all falling apart. In most of these cases, that's how these Hollywood people
are. They don't have a firm foundation of the Lord and Ephesians five, right? They've got worldly
stuff that's going to last for a short time. So the point is that we don't want to get too
fixated on any one area of our life because then we can't see that there's a plan B, that there's
life beyond running. There's life beyond marriage. There's life beyond childbearing. There's life
beyond being a pastor. There's life beyond your business. Maybe you founded a business and you've
run that business for 25 years and then the economy changes or your business falls apart.
Can you still live after that business is gone? Yes.
Now I'm running out of time and I'm going to preach more about this tonight. I'm going to
preach a sermon about marriage tonight. So I'm going to touch on this in my sermon tonight,
but this is another area where people can't see that there's a plan B for their life
is that the Bible teaches, I know that this is an unpopular teaching, but I'm just going to keep
on preaching it until I'm blue in the face, that the Bible says that when you get married it's
still, it's, it's till death. And the Bible says that whosoever marrieth her that is divorced
committed adultery. That's what the Bible says. Did you hear me? Whosoever marrieth her that is
divorced committed adultery. And the Bible says that whoso putteth away his wife and me,
his wife and marrieth another committed adultery. So the Bible doesn't teach this thing of,
oh, it didn't work out. We get divorced. We marry someone else. Now look, are there people
who made that mistake? Yes. And God has a plan B for them. And plan B for them is to stay married
to their current spouse and not to get divorced again. They already broke the first vow. Don't
break the second vow. Now there's a stupid heresy out there that's gotten popular over the last 10
years saying, oh, they should go back to their first spouse. You know what? The Bible said
that's an abomination in Deuteronomy 20. I don't have time to turn there, but Deuteronomy 24 says
that's an abomination. Jeremiah says an abomination. And so, no, that's a false doctrine. You, you know,
you need to stay married, whoever you're married to right now. I don't care if it's your second,
third, fourth spouse, you know, you've already made the mistakes in the past. Plan B, C or D for your
life is to stay married to the person that you're married to right now. Okay. That's God's plan for
your life. You stay faithful to the, to the vows that you've made and, and you don't get mad when
the preacher gets up and preached against what you did 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Why don't you
just get over it and realize that that's what Christ said. Put it in your pipe and smoke it
and realize that the young people need to hear it and that it's not going to change. It hasn't
changed for the last 2,000 years and it's never going to change. Okay. So just get over it. Don't
get all offended and just say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm on Plan B. I'm going to pick it
up and continue. I'm not going to try to be a pastor because Plan A is no longer available.
But listen to me. If you are one who's in a situation where you're divorced but you're not
remarried, right? Let's say you're divorced but you're not remarried. Let me tell you something.
God's plan for your life is clear in the Bible. Look what the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 7
verse 10. And unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord. Let not the wife depart from her
husband but and if she depart. So look, what's Plan A? Don't depart from your husband. What's
Plan B? But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and let
not the husband put away his wife. So look, Plan A is to stay married. Plan B is not to get divorced
and marry someone else. Plan B is to remain unmarried or to get reconciled to your husband.
That's Plan B for you. Now if you already mess up again and sin again by getting remarried, then
yeah, okay, now God's plan for your life at that point is to stay with who you're married to. But
you've gotten yet another step outside of God's will at that point. But, you know, like I said,
no matter how far you get from God's will, you can still keep going. You can still keep serving God.
You can still be used by God. Now you say, well, why do you preach on that? Why do you have to
harp on that? I'll tell you why. Because today the 99% of churches are teaching lies today
that tell you, oh yeah, you can get divorced, you can get remarried, it's allowed. And what? It's
caused the divorce rate among Christians to be the same as amongst the unsaved. It's a tragedy
today. It should be that Christians have a dramatically lower divorce rate. You know,
why isn't our divorce rate 2%, 3% instead of being just like the world's where it's like half
of marriages are going to end in divorce? It's a shame. It's really embarrassing. And if we had
more hard preaching that tells you to stay married and that if you're unmarried, you need to be,
if you're divorced, you need to be, stay single or be reconciled to your spouse, you know,
we'd have a lot less of that. And let me say this, people who balk at that and they say,
how could you say that I'm supposed to just be alone for the rest of my life? Well,
first of all, number one is I'm not telling you to be alone for the rest of your life.
Neither is the Lord because the Bible says, take no thought for the morrow. The morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. We don't know what a
day is going to bring forth. And so instead of trying to live the rest of your life today,
why don't you just think about today? Can you be single today? Can you be single tomorrow?
You may, you know what? I'll be single for the rest of my life. You know what? Maybe you'll just
die in the next week and then it won't be that long for you. Is that what you want?
Maybe, you know, if you whine too much about it, maybe God's just like, oh,
you don't want to live single. Well, okay, I guess I'll just bring you home.
I mean, think of it, is that what you want? Or you say, oh, first of all, you don't know that
you're even going to live longer than this day. You might not even be alive tomorrow, number one.
Number two, when all of your ex-husbands all die, you can get remarried.
When all five of your ex-husbands are dead, you can get remarried. Or if you're a man,
when your ex-wife, and I'm not saying that you should want them to die. I'm just saying
stranger things have happened. People have accidents. People disappear. No, I'm just kidding.
Just kidding. That was a joke. But the point is that, you know, I'm just saying
stranger things have happened. So, you know, if that's God's will, that could happen. You might
die. They might die. But beyond that, beyond the fact that you don't know what a day is going to
bring forth, how about this? Did you know that there's more to life than just your romantic
relationship? See, that brings me back to my point a few minutes ago, doesn't it? See, oh,
I'm just supposed to be alive. But here's the thing, there's other things to do with your life.
Life goes on, friend. And you know what? All of us one day are going to, if it's just about the
physical relationship for you, you know, all of us are going to one day, if we live long enough,
get to the point where that physical relationship's probably eventually going to go out the window.
Right? Where we just get too old.
And, you know, eventually it's going to be gone. Right? I mean, eventually, and you know what,
in the millennium, it's not going to be there at all for you, buddy. Because in the resurrection,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. You say, wow,
I'm just looking for the companionship. Look, I understand that, you know, because that's a
huge part of marriage is just the companionship. You know what? That's why plan A is better than
plan B. Because you have that companionship. You have that physical relationship. But you know what?
Plan B is not just a death sentence for you. Okay. You know, there are people who are living
a worse life than you. There are people that are not only are they single, but they're in prison.
What about somebody who's in prison for the next 30 years? Do they have that female companionship?
Do they have that physical relationship? No. And they're also in prison. Why don't you just think
about the fact, hey, at least I'm not in prison. Right? At least I can go outside. I can travel.
I can do what I want. I can enjoy good food. I can make friends. I can go out and do all kinds
of things. Right? What about people who've been physically crippled, and they don't have that
relationship, and they have no legs? How about them? Are you better off than them?
You can always find a lot of people who are going through a lot worse things. Okay, what about all
the billions of people that are burning in hell right now? At least you're not on fire. You say,
well, it's better to marry than to burn. Okay. I know you burn, but at least you don't burn, burn.
You know what I'm saying? I mean, look, why don't you count your blessings? That you're healthy,
you know, that you're free, that you have good food, good friends, good church. You have purpose
in your life, because you know what? I have purpose in my life beyond my marriage, beyond my children,
beyond being the pastor of this church if I lose everything, if I lose my wife, my children, if I
lose my job, if I lose my position as pastor, if I lose my YouTube channel. I'm telling you,
I will still have purpose. If I lose my ability to run, you know, I will still have purpose in my
life. I will always have purpose in my life, because I don't have all my eggs in one basket
of what I live for. You know what? The one big egg in my basket is the Lord, and he's never going
away. See, you know, if we realize, hey, the Lord has got something for me. He's not going anywhere.
Your wife might go somewhere, your kids might go somewhere, your health might go somewhere,
but you know what? He's never going anywhere, so our life is never over until we breathe our last
breath, and so I hope that this sermon is an encouragement to you. If you've messed up your
life in the past, you know what? You can still be used greatly by God. You can see the miracles.
You can fight the battles. You can do God's will, and not just a lame version, but you can
actually have a great life. You can actually live a great life on plan B or C or D, but you young
people, do yourself a favor and stay on plan A for your life. Amen? Let's bow our heads and have a word
of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the fact that you don't give up on us, Lord, and that
if we're your children, Lord, and we're breathing air, you still have a purpose for us, Lord.
Help us to finish the work that you've given us to do. Help us to never despair, and God, I pray that
no one who listens to my preaching or comes to this church would ever commit suicide, Lord, or
that they would ever just quit on you because they think that they've failed, Lord. Help them to dust
themselves off, get back in the fight, Lord. Help us never to give up and to stay serving you,
no matter how the plan changes over time, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.